TATP stands for triacetone triperoxide and is an extremely powerful explosive substance that was found in the Chemnitz apartment of a Syrian refugee, an apartment German police raided just minutes after the suspect escaped.

This is the same stuff that was used by the suicide bombers in Paris last November. German state media is therefore going to go way out on the limb here for once and speculate that this particular refugee “might” have been involved in a so-called “terrorist” plot. Details at eleven or something.

Stunned residents reacted to the incident last night, with one neighbour slamming Albakr as an ‘a*******’ for his alleged plot – what a racist, xenophobic a******* that neighbour must be.

That means running the gauntlet. You know, like the kind Angela Merkel and other politicians had to run through today during the German Reunification Day celebrations in Dresden?

Several hundred angry protesters confronted German Chancellor Angela Merkel outside Dresden‘s majestic Frauenkirche church on Monday morning, bringing Europe’s most powerful leader face-to-face with criticism of her migration policies on the 26th anniversary of German reunification.

Merkel arrived in Dresden to celebrate German Unity Day, the national holiday that marks the official reunification in 1990 of West Germany and former communist East Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But the chancellor was met with blaring whistles and hundreds of angry protesters chanting “Traitor of the people!” and “Merkel must go!” as she entered the church, which was surrounded by hundreds of protesters behind metal barricades that were lined with police officers.

Police say more than 120 officers were injured and 86 demonstrators were detained during leftist riots in the German capital which police call “the most aggressive and violent protests in the last five years.”

About 3,500 protesters participated in the rallies, which started Saturday evening and lasted until early Sunday. Activists had called for the demonstration to protest against police operations at buildings taken over the squatters in the eastern part of the city last month.

We all know how the enlightened left detests flag-waving. You know, flag-waving as in “a fallacious argument or propaganda technique used to justify an action based on the undue connection to nationalism or patriotism or benefit for an idea, group or country,” whatever that means exactly.

But the Greens in Germany have taken this to a new level. Their youth group has called for German soccer fans to leave their German flags at home during the Euro 2006 because, well, “Patriotismus=Nationalismus. Fußballfans Fahnen runter!” That is, Patriotism = Nationalism. Down with those flags, soccer fans!

How do you get to that point where something as harmless as rooting for your national team becomes a sinister act of rabid warmongering? Without using hallucinogenic drugs to get there, I mean.

“Besser Patriot als ein Idiot.”

PS: I don’t have a German flag handy but good luck with Ukraine tonight anyway, Germany!

Am Trumpsten means “the most Trump-like” in German. Well it does now. I just made that up. That’s the cool thing about German. You can make up words right and left (in this case right?) and no force in the universe can stop you.

The problem has the same root cause the American Trump-like problem has, too. Nobody “up there” takes the worries of these folks “down here” seriously, particularly with regard to the refugee crisis. It’s time to dish out some punishment, see? This anger won’t lead to anything constructive, of course, but nobody who votes for the Trumps of this world thinks that far ahead or very much cares. Get your popcorn ready. It’s gonna be ugly.

That means data privacy and is way big medicine here in Germany indeed. Just go ask Google, Facebook, the Boy Scouts, whoever.

So like how on earth could German counter-terrorism police be “investigating documents (illegally acquired) said to reveal the identities of a large number of fighters of so-called Islamic State?” Without their expressed written permission, I mean. Do Julian Assange and Edward Snowden know about this?

Don’t these terrorists have the right to keep the German state from snooping into their, uh, Islamic state? Somebody call the nation’s Datenschutzbeauftragter (data protection officer) immediately. This is an outrage or something.

Like just right now for the first time already or something? Ain’t nothing new here. I thought the BBC was more im Bilde (in the picture) than this: “Migrant attacks reveal dark side of Germany.”

This dark side has always been here, folks. It’s just that for some inexplicable reason, a whole lot of people – like Angela Merkel, for instance – don’t seem to be aware of it. You would think that she, of all people, would know what country she has “under” her (it’s about half starry-eyed Gutmenschen and half of those arsonist folks, just in case you were wondering) but sometimes, I guess, even she is going to be the last one to know.

Oh, another example of her being the last one to know: The coming introduction (reintroduction?) of a real live German border fence (see Austria). Better late than never, Frau Merkel. Although it’s probably too late for any graceful exit you may still have been hoping for.

Keep your eyes peeled on the coming regional elections in Germany, folks! Beginning on March 13 at a media outlet near you.

Attacks on Germany’s refugee shelters are increasingly common. Government statistics reveal that last year there were about 1,000 such attacks, five times the number reported in 2014.

As we all know, adults need their peace and quiet. Especially if they are German adults.

And German adults who need their peace and quiet can also be real innovators. That is why Germany is currently leading the field when it comes to the child-free hotel industry. No shirts, no shoes, no sixteen years of age? No service, junior.

“Your children are loud, annoying, disruptive, shrieky, poorly behaved and annoying as hell and ruin everyone else’s experience. Maybe it’s time breeders stop trying to force everyone else to bow down to their special snowflakes and realize that no one else loves your kid.”

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
- Frederic Bastiat

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
- Margaret Thatcher

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken

It is like information theory; it is noise posing as signal so you do not even recognize it as noise. The intelligence agencies call it disinformation. If you can float enough disinformation into circulation you will totally abolish everyone's contact with reality, probably your own included.
- Philip K. Dick

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
- Henry Kissinger

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

German schadenfreude knows no bounds, particularly when it comes to the United States. The country loves to feel superior to a superpower like America. Yet Germany also harbors a childish infatuation with Obama — one which has little political grounding. The reasons are psychological. …The criticism of America has always been a bit infantile. One is familiar with the theory from psychoanalysis, when people talk about transference, or when suppressed feelings or emotions are overcome by projecting them onto others. It may work for a while, improving one’s feeling of self-worth by devaluing an imagined adversary. But it always falls short. Which is why the ritual must be constantly carried out anew.
- Jan Fleischhauer

Intellectuals, in the words of the writer Eric Hoffer, "cannot operate at room temperature." They are excited by daring opinions, clever theories, sweeping ideologies, and utopian visions of the kind that caused so much trouble during the 20th century. The kind of reason that expands moral sensibilities comes not from grand intellectual "systems" but from the exercise of logic, clarity, objectivity, and proportionality.
- Steven Pinker

The difference between Greek pessimism and the oriental and modern variety is that the Greeks had not made the discovery that the pathetic mood may be idealized, and figure as a higher form of sensibility. Their spirit was still too essentially masculine for pessimism to be elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their classic literature... The discovery that the enduring emphasis, so far as this world goes, may be laid on its pain and failure, was reserved for races more complex, and (so to speak) more feminine than the Hellenes had attained to being in the classic period.
- William James

A doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength. Once we understand a thing, it is as if it had originated in us. And, clearly, those who are asked to renounce the self and sacrifice it cannot see eternal certitude in anything which originates in that self.
- Eric Hoffer

It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself. If people reach conclusions based on false impressions, they are the ones hurt rather than you, because it is they who are misguided. When someone interprets a true proposition as a false one, the proposition itself isn't hurt; only the person who holds the wrong view is deceived, and thus damaged. Once you clearly understand this, you will be less likely to feel affronted by others, even if they revile you. You can say to yourself, "It seemed so to that person, but that is only his impression."

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